Disclosures on artificial intelligence, or: tone shift!

The Ontario Securities Commission recently released staff research that analyzes the frequency and sentiment of Canadian listed issuers’ references to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their financial disclosures. Here’s how the OSC’s news release summed it up: As indicated above, one of the more interesting aspects of the exercise is that it itself made use of AI: The…

Next on the Trumpian agenda: down with the audit?

We recently looked at the current moves in the United States toward eliminating the audit regulator, the Public Company Auditing Oversight Board… And as if that wasn’t enough, Francine McKenna recently posted the following on LinkedIn: She harked back to something she’d written in January 2019: Although one might react to that with intuitive horror,…

Less is more, and nothing at all is even more!

We recently looked at a think-piece on the virtue of simplicity and concision in financial reporting… …and to extend that train of thought, I came across an article titled Less is More in Standard-Setting, written by Peter Reilly , a non-executive director at the UK Endorsement Board. Here are some extracts: Well yes, but getting…

Equity accounting – it’s (still) time to say goodbye!

As part of its activities, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) organizes a forum of enforcers from 38 different European jurisdictions, all of whom carry out monitoring and review programs similar to those carried out here by the Canadian Securities Administrators. ESMA last year published some extracts from its confidential database of enforcement decisions…

The global business of accounting, or: your measurement, my crisis!

Let’s dip once more into the Inside Standard Setting blog of Armand Capisciolto, Chair of Canada’s Accounting Standards Board, and a recent post titled International Relationships Matter!: The references there are to accounting standard setting, this being the blog’s focus, but it could also be a tacit acknowledgement that disclosure-related standard setting is relatively more…

The state of auditor oversight, or: conflicting directions?

Political Uncertainty Looms Over PCAOB as SEC Leadership Shifts, announces the headline of a recent article on the website of the New York State Society of CPAs. Here are some extracts: And then, as subsequently reported by the Financial Times: Canadian Accountant weighed in: As we’ve seen most recently in the area of climate-related disclosure,…

The Canadian Accounting Hall of Fame, or: develop your understanding here!

The Canadian Accounting Hall of Fame has announced its latest batch of inductees: In the “founders of the profession” category, we have R. Douglas (Doug) Thomas, who passed away in 2004: “a transformative figure in Canadian and international accounting, known for his visionary leadership and commitment to advancing financial reporting and auditing standards. Over a…

Trump’s tariffs: extraordinary nonsense!

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency recently gave us a notable example of deficient accounting-related record-keeping… …and the Trump administration continues in its uniquely charmless way to provide material falling within the broad scope of this blog. You know how we’ve all believed, or claimed to believe, that financial and economic information is useful to…